Five Motéma Artists Among Nominees Of The 11th Independent Music Awards

Tags

JC Stylles, Malika Zarra, Monty Alexander, Motéma Music, Randy Weston, Rene Marie

Independent Music Awards Nominee

Recordings by Motéma artists Monty Alexander, Randy Weston, Malika Zarra, René Marie, and JC Stylles are among the nominees named by Music Resource Group (MRG) for The 11th Independent Music Awards (The IMAs), the influential awards program for independent bands and fans.

Two Motéma projects were nominated in the “Live Performance Album” category, both of which were recorded live at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola: Monty Alexander’s Harlem-Kingston Express Live! , and NEA Jazz Master Randy Weston & his African Rhythms Sextet’s The Storyteller . Nominated in the “Jazz Album” category is vocalist René Marie’s outrageous emancipation proclamation, Black Lace Freudian Slip and Australian guitar ace JC Stylles’ album Exhilaration & Other States . In the “World Beat Album” category, Moroccan artist Malika Zarra is honored for her outstanding CD Berber Taxi .

New Jazz Releases for the Week of 4/12/2011

Tags

Ben Allison, Benny Green, Gordon Goodwin, Jazz, Leo Blanco, Malika Zarra, New Releases

Greeting’s jazz enthusiasts, I’m elated as always to present the latest jazz releases for the second week of April. With each visit, you’ll discover a montage of new jazz recordings featured at Amazon.com that encompasses a generous diet of nuances which includes a wealth of complex and distinctive styles, textures, melodies, and rhythms exalted by a host of definitive and creative voices in the world of jazz.

New Jazz for the week of 4-12-2011

For more details, please visit Amazon.com for a complete list of this week latest jazz releases!

..:: SOURCE: Amazon.com ::..

New Music by Motéma Music Recording Artist MALIKA ZARRA

Tags

Female Vocalist, Jazz, Malika Zarra

Malika Zarra - Berber Taxi

Jazz has been called one of America’s greatest contributions to the world’s culture, but it’s important to remember it’s an art form that has grown from countless cultural exchanges with artists and styles outside the U.S. An inspiring new international voice, who is both influenced by jazz and is bringing her own culture and creativity to the melting pot, is MALIKA ZARRA. Born in Morocco, raised in France, and now thriving in the polyglot metropolis of New York City, this gifted composer, producer and singer has invented a new Moroccan urban-world-jazz by tastefully using traditional North African chaâbi, Berber and Gnawa polyrhythms to underpin her distinctly contemporary urban compositions, all the while maintaining a sophisticated improvisational modern jazz approach.

Joining other fresh New York faces of the international jazz scene, such as Afro-Latin bassist/singer Esperanza Spalding, Zarra’s sultry multi-lingual vocals move effortlessly between Berber, Moroccan Arabic, French, and English.

With the release of Berber Taxi on April 12th, 2011 by Motéma Music (home to legendary innovators Randy Weston and Geri Allen, and powerhouse newcomers such as Gregory Porter (GRAMMY®-nominated for Best Jazz CD on his debut release), Zarra takes her rightful place as an important world-jazz artist on New York’s multicultural music scene. Berber Taxi takes up its journey following Zarra’s self-released 2006 debut, On the Ebony Road, which has sold over 2,000 copies, largely from her gigs and by word of mouth reputation. Whereas that first album was recorded jazz-style, mixed and mastered in two days, Zarra has, in her words, “fought” long and hard to make this one sound exactly the way she wanted it to. –BIOGRAPHY

The multilingual vocalist and composer appeared on CNN earlier this year.

..:: SOURCE: Motéma Music.com ::..

ObliqSound Presents: Vocalist Malika Zarra

Tags

Female Vocalist, Jazz, Malika Zarra, Morrocco, World Music

Malika Zarra

Moroccan world singer/composer/producer, MALIKA ZARRA is a multi-cultural shape-shifter, an enchantress who leaps effortlessly between seemingly unconnected languages and traditions, uniting them while utilizing each to further enrich the others. The exotically beautiful artist with the velvety, sinuous mezzo-soprano voice has demonstrated a rare ability to communicate both powerful and subtle ideas and feelings in French, English and Moroccan Arabic and is now a much-in-demand headliner at nightclubs and festivals the world over.

Malika was born in Southern Morocco, in a little village called Ouled Teima. Her father’s family was originally from Smara, an oasis just off the Sahara, while her mother was a Berber from the High Atlas. During her early childhood, there was always music and dancing in the house and Malika sang almost from babyhood. After her family emigrated to a suburb of Paris, she found herself straddling two very different societies. I had to be French at school yet retain my Moroccan cultural heritage at home, she recalls, Like many immigrant children, I learned to switch quickly between the two. It was hard but brought me a lot of good things too.